By David Harry

Staff Writer

A man considered a witness in the disappearance of a Scarborough woman remains in Cumberland County Jail in Portland this week on drug trafficking charges.

Akeem Cruz, 20, of Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested by Maine Drug Enforcement Agency agents Aug. 10 in a South Portland motel room and charged with Class B unlawful trafficking in cocaine base, according to MDEA Special Agent Supervisor Kevin Cashman.

Cashman said Cruz was arrested with 13 grams of crack cocaine when agents raided the Route 1 motel after a complaint about drug trafficking. Cashman did not name the motel in a press release

Cruz also was charged with violating conditions of release and remains in jail, according to officers at Cumberland County Jail in Portland.

The cocaine was packaged for sale and had a street value of $1,300 and Cruz was carrying more than $500 cash when arrested, Cashman said, in his press release.

With Cruz in jail, Lorraine Ela, a South Portland resident and mother of 22-year-old Megan Waterman,  said she hopes his arrest will prompt him to speak up about her daughter’s disappearance.

“I’m hoping he will talk to them and tell them what he knows,” she said.

Scarborough Police Detective Don Blatchford, who is leading Waterman’s missing person investigation, said Cruz was Waterman’s boyfriend and accompanied her on a trip to Long Island just after Memorial Day. 

Waterman was last seen early on June 6 at a Holiday Inn Express in the Long Island town of Hauppage, N.Y. 

Blatchford said the case is being investigated by both Maine and New York police and said officers from New York visited Maine during the weekend. He declined to comment on the nature of the visit and said there are no new leads in the investigation.

Waterman, the mother of a 2-year-old girl, was known to list services as an escort on Craigslist and made frequent trips to New York with Cruz, police said. Ela said her daughter called home as often as three times a day and family members last spoke with her the evening of June 5.

Since her disappearance, Waterman’s friends and family held a vigil in Portland and have distributed her personal information on posters and balloons in Maine and Long Island with the help of Londonderry, N.H.-based LostNMissing Inc.

The organization was established by Cynthia Caron to assist families and help law enforcement search for missing loved ones, Caron said in a June interview.

Cruz’s arrest marks his third brush with the law since May. He was charged with criminal threatening with a dangerous weapon in June by Portland police. 

At the time of his arrest, Portland Police Lt. Gary Rogers said Cruz allegedly flattened two tires on a vehicle on Allen Avenue, threatened the owner with a knife and told her to stop talking about him. Cruz allegedly flattened the remaining tires on the car after she fled.

In May, Cruz was charged with drug trafficking after South Portland police officers and MDEA agents raided the Howard Johnson hotel on Main Street.

South Portland Police Lt. Frank Clark said the arrests of Cruz, Luqman Jones, 27, of Portland and Kabar Williams, 31, and Vashawn Brown, 20, both of Brooklyn, N.Y., came after police responded to a complaint about the smell of marijuana coming from a hotel room.

Clark said the four were in possession of marijuana, cash and weapons when arrested and the case was turned over to the MDEA for investigation.

Waterman’s disappearance recently was reported on CNN, but Ela said the exposure didn’t lead to any breaks in the missing persons case.

“I just wish somebody would come forward,” she said.

Waterman is 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs about 145 pounds, has a birthmark inside her left forearm and a mole on the right side of her face. Police said she has brown or bleached blonde hair, and tattoos on her back and left forearm.

The tattoo on Waterman’s upper left arm says “Liette,” the one on her lower left arm is the Capricorn horoscope sign and she has a tribal design tattoo with a heart in the center on her lower back.

Anyone with information about Waterman’s whereabouts is asked to call Scarborough police at 883-6361. For more information about Waterman, visit the Facebook page “Help Find Megan Waterman” page or www.meganwaterman.com.

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219